Soldiers, Nobles and Gentlemen

Book excerpt: New essays on chivalry, warfare, and treason and politics in the middle ages. Chivalric culture, soldiers and soldiering, and treason, politics and the court form the main themes of this volume - as is appropriate in a book which honours the distinguished medievalist Maurice Keen. The essays, all by eminentscholars in the field, cover such topics as nobility and mobility in Anglo-Saxon society; chivalry and courtliness; the crusade and chivalric ideas; chivalry and art; devotional literature; piety and chivalry; military strategy;the victualling of castles; Bertrand du Guesclin; soldiers' wives; military communities in fourteenth-century England; military and administrative service among the fifteenth-century gentry; treason, disinvestiture and the disgracing of arms; and treason in Lancastrian Normandy. Overall, they reflect the range of the honoree's interests, the depth of his scholarship, the international flavour of his work, and his unique contribution to historical scholarship. The volume includes appreciations from a former pupil and colleagues, and ends with a bibliography of his work. CONTRIBUTORS: LINNIE RAWLINSON, MARTIN CONWAY, SIMON SKINNER, JAMES CAMPBELL, DAVID CROUCH, CHRISTOPHERTYERMAN, CRAIG TAYLOR, ADRIAN AILES, NIGEL SAUL, JEREMY CATTO, ROWENA ARCHER, CHRISTOPHER ALLMAND, MICHAEL PRESTWICH, MICHAEL JONES, ANNE CURRY, ANDREW AYTON, SIMON PAYLING, PETER COSS, MATTHEW STRICKLAND, JULIET BARKER, MALCOLM VALE, GERALD HARRISS, MARY KEEN